Bread and Butter

This morning came plenty early even with all of the anticipation of butter and cheese making filling my day. Although I must confess, mornings are not as hard as have been in the past. The guys had a day filled with tree chopping although they took a little time out to admire Merida.

My farmer is the one on the right by the fence.

My farmer is the one on the right by the fence.

The little girls and I spent the day processing dairy.

The butter was a phenomenal success. It turned out creamy and rich and everything I hoped for and more. My first time making butter I was a little nervous but I was so rewarded for my efforts. Honestly,the most effort involved was separating the cream from the milk!

Here is what I did:

I poured about a quart and a cup of heavy cream into my stand mixer with the paddle attachment on.

Starting my mixer on a low speed I just let it do its thing until it started to get a little thicker. Then I bumped up the speed as high as I could without the cream splashing out. You will want to make sure you have plenty of space at the top of your mixing bowl so you don’t lose any of that goodness.

Once the cream starts getting thick like whipping cream you have to watch it. Making it get to this stage takes about 10 minutes. The rest happens in about 2 minutes. The butter starts to resemble cottage cheese or something along that texture line and you will see milk sloshing around between the globs of butter. Stop your mixer.

I scraped all of that butter together and dumped it into a strainer over a bowl saving the buttermilk, it is yummy to drink (my Dad made a special trip over just to take the buttermilk, which was a favorite treat of his growing up) or to use for making bread, pancakes or anything else! This buttermilk is not sour like the cultured stuff you buy in the store, it is sweet like milk and a little buttery.

Once I had the butter strained it looked like this and it was time to rinse it. The process of rinsing was very simple, I covered the butter with cold water and squished it with my spatula. I then drained off the water and repeated with fresh cold water until it ran clear.

After the final rinsing, I added 1/2 a teaspoon of salt (hindsight I would have added just a teeny bit less). At long last…. or 20 minutes my butter was ready! The end product was about 12 ounces of rich creamy goodness, that may be the best dairy product I have eaten to date.

Should you make your own butter, which I highly recommend having done it myself, and promptly informed my husband we may need another cow, just to keep up with MY butter demands, you should make some homemade bread to put it on, put on your pajamas and call it a day.

Looking for a great recipe for dinner rolls? Check out my Sixty Minute Rolls over in the recipe section!

I also started cheddar cheese today as well (not quick and easy). That has to age for 3 months and is still in its “pressing” process. We will all have to wait in suspense a little longer on that one.